Ruin
by Mlaia3
Summary: Almost everything had changed. But the fire still burned, and the ruins still stood. She returned to get her locket before going to the Firelands, and still nothing had changed after all those years.


Alristrasza banked, her rider's gentle tug on the reins all it took for the drake to understand that she was to land on a small island off Darkshore.

As soon as the drake's paws hit the land, Roseita slid off, staring vacantly at the burnt ruins of the house on the island.

Eerie, was a good word to describe it. It hadn't changed in the Cataclysm. It seemed that hell or high water couldn't even destroy the broken remains of the small house. The stone base was still covered in the ash that destroyed most of the building, the remaining wood of the walls still charred, the fireplace still empty, the small raft where it had always been.

It just hadn't changed at all.

The small campfire still burned, after all those years it still burned. How the hell was it still burning? How did the ruins of the house remain?

By the fire was a log and a stool, a shield with the emblem of Stormwind leaning against the log just like it had been when she'd left it there while visiting four years ago. The shovel that she'd buried the locket with still where it was.

She glanced to the tree which had begun growing by the shoreline. Small, was a good word for it, with vibrant leaves that seemed well enough lit by the faint lighting of Darkshore. The sun hadn't shone there for many years, with thick clouds always masking the faint light of both sun and moon.

The island and its house hadn't changed since its burning, but the thick forest on shore had. She needn't have shared it a glance, quite familiar with the dreary trees and frequent drenching that one would likely encounter there. A maelstrom had been ripped into the land as the Shattering happened, with most of the rivers flowing into it. A few of the rivers still tributaried into the sea, but an alarming amount of the water that flowed from the mainland were rivulets from some of the rather large puddles of rainwater that accumulated until they poured down to the sea.

She noticed that at least three new ponds had sprung up since the Shattering, probably many more.

And yet still, the ruins hadn't changed at all.

She'd always wondered what had set them alight. Was it demons? Was it Horde? Was it thieves or bandits? She didn't know. She'd probably never know.

She motioned for Alristrasza to stay put, slowly walking forward to a small area, a staff adorned with various charms and preserved flowers sticking up from the ground. She briefly stopped, to pick up the shovel, going to where the staff was and removing it, throwing it carelessly to the side.

She was sure Alristrasza was looking at her, probably as if she was crazy.

She dug the shovel into the earth, again and again until it hit what she knew must have been the box. She knelt down to feel around.

And pulled up a worthless stone. So perhaps that wasn't the box.

She threw it into the water, going back to digging until she did hit the box. Pulling it up, she looked at the wooden box with no visible way to open it. With fumbling fingers, she ran her thumb along the bottom of the box, pulling her finger to the side with a small sound that resembled a wooden clicking. The small panel of decorated wood pulled back and the top popped open, revealing a locket inside.

She took it in her fingers, eyeing the purple stone at the end of the silver chain wistfully. She let the box drop the ground, gently stowing the trinket away in a bag at her side. Sapphire had managed to get outside his traveling bag, made of a porous cloth, and was now curling around Roseita's arm, but she didn't notice him as she kicked the still-open box back into the hole, lazily shoving some of the dirt back in.

She winced as she looked to the house. She'd lived there with her mate, Drakahis, after the Battle of Mount Hyjal. They were going to start their life together, but the house burnt down, taking Drakahis with it.

She hadn't been there when the fire started. Oh no, she'd been at Auberdine, speaking with her sister. Gushing over the thought of having a child, even.

It was only when someone heading to the pier shouted "FIRE!" did anyone learn of the house's burning down. By the time they'd managed to put out the flames, the house was almost entirely burnt down.

No one knew how the fire started, and no one tried to find out. Roseita herself merely buried the locked he'd given her and took to adventuring, with nothing much else to do in the wake of his death other than help defend Azeroth.

But she was nobody when it came to that. She'd never done anything truly heroic, she just cleaned up what the bigwigs left behind and did errands. Sure she got to go to Uldum, but it was for archaeology and to see if the rumors were really true. Sure she was going to the Firelands, but she was already days behind the time she wanted to be at Hyjal, due to various storms that had slowed her and Alristrasza.

She glanced to the destroyed pier, the wood slowly rotting away. In a few hundred years, there would be no more pier. Auberdine itself might just be a memory, if the waves continued to crash until the ruins were washed away.

The watchtower no longer stood.

The water had returned the stone it sat upon to the sea, and the tree was nowhere to be found. The waves and Deathwing had proven too much, most likely. But she wasn't there when the town fell, so she knew not when the watchtower had fallen.

She looked towards the sundered land, ripped up by the Shattering, with a small chasm filled with water between the massive cracks of the land.

Nothing left but ruins and sour memories.

She couldn't even cry at the loss, she simply looked around blankly, walking back over to Alristrasza and climbing on, Sapphire still curled around her shoulder. The drake kicked off without a word, heading towards Hyjal.

She'd gotten over it long ago. She decided she would never love again. Never have a child. She would just spend of the rest of her years wandering Azeroth, trying to become a hero. There was nothing of her old life left. She was no longer a friendly, peppy fisher with a bright future; she was an adventurer who was too hyper for her own good and too distant to care.

The house wasn't even Kaldorei in style, oh no, she'd based it off human structure because it was easier to be built there. It had been hers, but now it belonged to nobody.

_Goodbye…_

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><p><strong>AN: Just another fic with Roseita in it. A few people may know the location in question.**


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